Braving the Damned
by son-of-prongss
Summary: A quiet night in the Gryffindor Tower - were the sixth year boys prepared for an abrupt turn up of a sultry visitor? No. Were they prepared for quite a horrific turn of events? Definitely not. It all happened anyway. One-shot; very slight lime; character death; Rated M for gore; follow-up coming soon.
1. Chapter 1 - Braving the Damned

**AN: This is my first Harry Potter fanfiction, actually my first fanfiction at all. Constructive criticism welcome, etc etc.**

**Beta'd by the lovely HalfASlug, thank you for helping me out and improving my British English!**

**I am obviously not JK Rowling, so Harry Potter obviously does not belong to me (such a shame).**

**Enjoy (:**

* * *

Silence and a humble darkness lay like a blanket over the Gryffindor Tower. Somewhere in the corner by the door of the sixth year boys' dormitory, a toad's croak broke the hush.

Neville threw back his four-poster hanging in exasperation, heaving a great sigh that sounded very much like '_bloody Trevor'. _He snatched his wand from his bedside table, marched across the room and tugged the heavy dorm door open, just as a swamp green blob leapt between his feet and preceded down the stairs. Neville swore and thumped down the stairwell after the toad.

When the lumbering footsteps faded from earshot, Ron snorted. "What's that? The third time this week?"

Cackling, Seamus drew back his own drapes. "I think he should've left the bleeding thing back on the train in our first year. More trouble than it's worth, I'd say."

"The git's left the door open, too." Dean pitched in, sounding a little narked.

Ron frowned; calling Neville a git certainly wasn't necessary, but he reasoned that they were all a little touchy this week. After a crack down from the teachers about dreaded N.E.W.T.s next year, and the recent cringe-worthy tension between Dean and Harry over Ginny, occasional cases of name-calling and bickering like menopausal women were excusable.

Sounds of unsubtle calls for Trevor drifted up from the common room. Other than that, everything was eerily quiet. Nightfall of Hogwarts was missing its usual whisper; the weather mute and the distant hoot of owls absent. Ron opened his mouth to comment but Harry bet him to it.

"I swear, you could hear a pin drop in the Great Hall from here. It's driving me mad."

"I think that's a bit of an overstatement, mate – out by the Fat Lady, maybe –"

Seamus was cut off by a shrill, demanding voice that didn't belong in a boys' dormitory.

"Harry."

Ron, with strangely heightened senses as the next two seconds unfolded, snatched his wand from under his pillow and jumped to his feet. To a rough chorus of much swearing and exclamations of fright, the pair behind him followed suit, Dean getting tangled in his hangings in the process. Harry, wand in hand and pushing his glasses on his face, stammered "Blimey! Who the-_oh_" as the girlish silhouette that stood over his bed leaned down, grabbed him by the collar of his t-shirt and latched her mouth to his.

As the sounds of feverish kissing filled the dorm, Ron, Seamus and Dean relaxed from their defensive stances and with the shock ebbing away, the laughing started. They'd nearly soiled themselves over _a girl_, and one who decided it was a good idea to show up and snog Harry in the middle of the night at that! Ginny wouldn't be happy – Luna had made an uncomfortable remark about how much Ginny seemed to enjoy being around Harry, and Ron had spied them by the fire in the common room that same night, chatting animatedly about Quidditch, Ginny all starry-eyed and what not. Ron had turned back to copying Hermione's homework with a scowl.

"Bloody hell," Ron guffawed, though now a bit irked, "did anyone see when the hell she got in here?"

Dean was clutching at his side, "No, but, blow me, this is going to make some talk at breakfast tomorrow!"

Ron looked back at the pair in question and was nauseated to see the girl had straddled him, and the rhythmic rolling of her spine and hips told him she was grinding his friend in a rather arousing fashion. Her nightdress, glowing white in the moonlight that peaked through the window, had fallen back and exposed a portion of her pale thigh.

Pushing the urge to vomit and a forcefully denied spot of jealousy to the tip of his toes, Ron turned his back and covered his flushed face.

Unheard by his chortling roommates, Harry's quiet grunts of satisfaction were becoming gripes of displeasure – she was nipping, _biting _even…

Nonetheless, Ron, Dean and Seamus remained oblivious and were still chuckling at their own foolishness when Neville strode through the open door, his wand-tip alight.

He jumped and dropped his toad and jaw when his eyes met the pale backside of Harry's bedmate. Harry was groping the girl in such a way it almost looked as if he was trying to throw her off. "Who the bloody hell is that?!"

"Dunno, mate, that's what we were wondering." Seamus stooped down to capture Trevor as he bounded for a trainer lying under Ron's bed.

Neville took a tentative step towards Harry's bed and raised his lit wand. "Ron, isn't that y-your sister?"

Ron fumed. As the beams from Neville's wand hit flaming red tresses that were a shade darker than his own, all the blood in his body rushed to his ears. He didn't need to see a face to know who it was behind the curtain of hair. "_Ginny._"

Yes, for a week or two, he'd suspected something creeping up between his friend and his sister, even without Luna's unsubtle prompt. But for Ginny to come and act on it _here _and _now_? And in _this _manner? This was crossing the line. And she damn-well knew it. "_Ginny!_"

It was like he hadn't spoken. Neither she nor Harry acknowledged him, and if anything, she only rubbed her hips a little harder against his. Fury boiled white hot in Ron's stomach and rose up, making no effort to stop as it passed through his teeth in a spitting rage. "GINNY!" he bellowed, "GINNY, WHAT THE BLOODY HELL DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING?!" He marched forwards, making to stop them himself. "GINNY! GINNY, YOU WONTON LITTLE –"

Ginny had finally pried herself from Harry, but the face that looked up to stare and bare its teeth at Ron was not his little sister at all.

Ron's breath rattled in his lungs at he took the sight in. Though it had retained its full glorious colour, her hairline had receded, broadening an ashen and veiny forehead, below which gleamed black, black eyes, not unlike that of a goblin. Long, sharp needle-like teeth gleamed with a dark dripping substance beneath pale shapeless lips as a slow malicious smile twisted her features further. Her elongated limbs shared the same deathlike complexion as her face as she crouched over the bed, almost possessively, like Ron had made to steal a cub, or a meal. The she-thing moved to grip a bed post and what the shift in position revealed made him heave a sob and someone behind him retch.

Harry lay beneath her, dead; his mouth and neck mutilated beyond recognition, his glasses askew, and blood soaking the bedding he rested on. Ron felt a great emptiness tear at his insides – Harry, his best friend, the Boy Who Lived, couldn't be dead; not like this, not at all!

Eyes boring into Ron, the she-devil flung a skeletal hand in the direction of the door – it slammed and sealed shut with a pop he associated with the incantation _Colloportus_. For a second, Hermione floated into his field of vision, furiously shouting '_Alohomora, Ron! Alohomora!_' In the same second, tears burned in his eyes.

_Hermione…_

He shook his head. _I'm so sorry, Hermione. _To unlock that door would be to unleash this thing on the rest of the tower, the rest of the school, even. He would stay where he was in the hopes that killing him would keep the demon from slaughtering anyone else.

The thing that was _not _his sister crawled off the bed, and across the little distance he'd put between himself and it. His instincts and his friends screamed and wailed at him to run, run, get out, but he ignored it all. She had reached his feet and was gazing up at him with what could have been polite curiosity had she not looked so hungry.

He would not move. He would not flinch. He would not bat an eye lid.

She reached up and grabbed a fist full of Ron's t-shirt, slowly hoisting herself up to meet his eyes. He resisted the impulse to shake her by the shoulders and beg for his little sister back.

Adrenaline pulsed in his veins, pumped around furiously by his frantic heart – it only had so many beats left. Is this how Harry had felt every time he faced death? Every time he looked Voldemort in the eye?

Ron felt the sick burn his throat, the tears burn his eyes and the fury and determination burn his insides. He was face to face with what was _not _his sister. Her hands were cold around his neck, as was her breath on his sweaty face. She gave a throaty hiss, and the blood of his friend joined the sweat.

He remained stony-faced. He would not die scared.

As if the thing could read his thoughts, she barked a disgusting laugh and lifted him by his throat, his feet inches off the ground. With another malicious smile and a surprising strength, she hurled him into his headboard, rupturing his neck in three different places.

Ron Weasley was dead.

She turned on the other three; their heads were held high as they stood side-by-side, wand-less, ready to follow in Ron and Harry's wake. There was no other choice.

* * *

Lavender wasn't a morning person.

As she trudged down the flight of stairs from the girls' dormitories to the common room, she cursed the pretty white owl that had awoken her with mad scratching on the window. _At six o'clock in the morning? _She'd rolled over and attempted sleep again, to no avail. She'd scooped up her unfinished Transfiguration homework and headed for the door.

She looked over the essay Professor McGonagall had set them, and was frowning at a spelling mistake when her slippered foot met something squelchy lying on the floor. Her homework fluttered to the ground as her hands flew to her mouth to stifle a squeal. She nudged the limp, green and slimy lump with her toe. Dead.

"Ergh, yuck – _oh, Neville." He would _be really gutted, she supposed. He'd had Trevor as long she could remember. Bravely, she bent down and on closer inspection she saw a bite mark on Trevor's clammy back – one rather large, feral looking bite mark, made by something with many teeth.

Face screwed up in distaste, Lavender straightened her back. What on earth did that? Not a Boggart, surely. But nothing else could have got into the tower, not to lie in wait of a _toad_, anyway. She stepped around the pitiful carcass and b-lined for the stairs to the boys' dormitory, homework forgotten.

She knocked on the door marked with a large six. No reply. She knocked again. "Neville?"

When the silence behind the door held up, she stepped closer, laid a hand on the door handle and spoke to the oak panelling. "Neville, I – er – found Trevor. In the common room. N-Neville, Trevor's kind of – er – dead… I'm sorry, he's got bite…" Lavender stopped, having noticed the slight vibration under her hand and the ringing in her ears that told her the door was under several charms. She muttered '_terum audis'_, the counter-curse for Harry's beloved _muffilo_. There was still no noise from behind the door. After a moment's hesitation, she uttered '_alohomora'_, perhaps a little louder than was necessary.

Oh well, maybe she'd see Ron in his pyjamas.

As the door swung open, any thoughts of spying boys in nightclothes were shunted from her mind.

It took a moment for her to realize the horror of the scene, as all the blood blended so well with the Gryffindor décor.

Five boys lay in their respective beds, wearing next to nothing and looking far from sleeping peacefully. Dean Thomas was face down on his sheets, his back in bloody ribbons. In the next bed, Seamus Finnigan was curled in a fetal position, his limbs broken and mangled, and his face bore three deep cuts. His eyes were closed, thank God. Neville's body had fared worse – his chest looked deflated, like someone had beaten his ribs to a pulp. A large portion of his shoulder was missing and he looked as though there was no blood left in his body. Lavender's heart clenched when her eyes met those of Ron's, dead and staring. His body looked unscathed, save for the odd angle of his neck and four or five wide bite marks in his torso. She knew he was dead, but she wasn't prepared to see Harry Potter's lovely face maimed from nose to collarbone, blood soaking his white pillow red.

Lavender blanched and began to hyperventilate – she could feel one of her rare panic attacks rising in her chest – her throat too dry to scream, her eyes too wide to cry. She willed her feet towards the door, not daring to turn her back on her dead friends.

Almost at the threshold, she ceased her retreat to the door as she took another blow to her rising hysteria.

In the centre of the circular room, bruised, bloodied and stark naked, lay Ginny Weasley.


	2. Chapter 2 - Curing the Damned Preview

**Hi there (:**

**Been a while, but I'm getting on with the sequel as much as I can. In the meantime, here's a small preview – sorry about any mistakes or plot flaws etc, this is so far un-beta'd and what not. Let me know if you find anything wrong.**

**Enjoy, and the rest shouldn't be too far away! x**

Mid-May daybreak was hauling itself over the horizon, staining the dreary grey of predawn a lovely pink. Hermione sat curled amongst her blankets, her Ancient Runes study spread on her bed before her. Hedwig sat on her headboard and occasionally – to Hermione's growing irritation – nipping at her ear and squawking. After waking both Hermione and Lavender with mad scratching and beating on the dorm window, Hermione had flung the window open and let the bird in, though the mild din Hedwig was producing had proceeded. Lavender had fled downstairs, and with good reason.

As Hermione leaned forward to seize a textbook, she felt a tug at her hair. When waving her hand vigorously over her shoulder at the owl only provoked another yank, she twisted around in her sheets, sending paper and pencils to the floor. A few strands of hair hung from a beak beneath outlandishly intent amber eyes.

"Hedwig!" she hissed, "For God's _sake_, what is your prob-?"

Hermione stopped mid-sentence at the sound of running on the other side of the door, followed by loud and frantic attempts to open it. Hedwig gave a screech that awoke everyone else in the dorm and took wing to the beams in the ceiling, where she watched a pale and extremely distraught Lavender burst through the door. Hermione was out of bed before the girl had even crossed the room.

At the sight of Ron's ex-girlfriend (of nearly two weeks now, mind you) so frenetic and gasping unintelligible things, Hermione held back a smirk and thought '_surely homework doesn't upset her _that _much?_'

Her inner haughtiness dissolved when Lavender stammered straight past an alarmed Parvati and headed in her direction. Lavender's hysterical cries quickly became clear as she gripped Hermione's shoulders with frightful strength: "…H'miony, H'miony, H'miony…"

In the face of such terrified eyes, Hermione ruled out homework as a problem and sat Lavender on her bed, where she began rocking back and forth and clutching her knees so tightly her knuckles turned as white as her face.

Parvati dropped down next to her, brushing hair from her friend's face, "Lav? Lav, what happened?"

Lavender only shook her head and let loose a cry that forced Hermione to her knees in front of her. Something was very wrong.

"Lavender," she spoke in a firm voice that she hoped sounded calming and not frustrated, "What's going on?"


End file.
